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Monday, 22 February 2010

In 1994 I got a job at a newly opened supermarket on the outskirts of Derby (I'll refrain from naming the firm - we live in litigious times). The wages were utterly shit (£2.21/hour starting rate for 17 years olds, going up to a whopping £2.63 when I turned 18), the company was crap, working hours long and hard, and the store management were awful. They were always looking for more reasons to find fault, bully and intimidate. And it was young folk and women who especially got it in the neck.

This more than anything else taught me that class mattered. If you have to work for a wage, you place yourself on the pain of dismissal at the mercy of those who manage your labour. Now if that isn't a recipe for abusive and exploitative relationships, I don't know what is.

Thanks to these experiences, even just thinking about workplace bullying makes me angry. So what do I make of the accusations made by a dodgy-looking "charity" that claim Gordon Brown has bullied prime ministerial office staff?

What has is how workplace bullying is being used as a football in the daily kickabout of pre-election politics. If, for instance the Tories gave two shits about it at the very least we're entitled to a serious examination of the link between workplace bullying, macho management and the erosion of workers' rights that took place under their watch. Any chance of that? Not on your nelly.

And before any Labour readers start feeling smug, it is an uncomfortable truth that this government has done little to redress the situation. Indeed, Brown has presided over far more serious cases of bullying the right and the media are more than happy to cheerlead. That's to name but two.

That's the real scandal here, not some half-baked accusations cynically released to damage Labour's election campaign.

For some reason I was under the genuine misapprehension that the minimum wage was £5.83 per hour. It is currently £5.80. When I queried it recently, there was a barbed comment about "brinkmanship" and a lot of door slamming etc...

OK, so I was mistaken its £5.80, but it was a genuine misapprehension rather than "brinkmanship". Any employee be able to ask such a question without such fuss.

Do I think of that "loss of temper" as bullying...?

No.

I do, however regard it as a good indication of the character of the person I'm working for...

I am in two minds about this one, Giles. An inquiry might clear the air, but isn't that a tacit admission that all is not well, which in turn damages the government in an extremely tight race? Especially as the charity itself turns out to be a commercial front?

And really, outside of Westminster does anyone really care? See how quickly the story's been dropped.

Outstanding! You have really got to what matters here. Like lots of other human failings we all have the potential to be bullies (and victims). The trick is to establish the kind of social/economic relationships that don't favour it.